The Second Conference Report of the Tozai Shukyo Koryu Gakkai: Hisamatsu Sensei's Theory of Zen and Shin Buddhism

Abstract

Partly because he grew up in a Shin Buddhist family, Hisamatsu's interest in Shin Buddhism was very strong, and he developed his critique of it until the end of his life. No reaction to this critique has been forthcoming from the specialists in Shin Buddhist doctrine, but would like to offer some response to it from my standpoint as an outsider. Simply stated, Hisamatsu's idea of Shin Buddhism appears to be based on the Shin Buddhism of the common man and not on that of Shinran. Therefore, will confront Hisamatsu's ideas directly with those of Shinran on a few points. The first and most striking difference between Hisamatsu and Shinran is that they offer totally opposite interpretations of the Shinran always stressed: am a foolish human being involved in the cycle and full of sin. Hisamatsu, on the other hand, declared: have no passions and do not die. What did each of them mean by or the self to come to such contradictory ways of speaking? Hisamatsu distinguishes in the a life-death I and a I, which he calls the original self or formless The true self has no form. It transcends all forms. From the standpoint of that original or formless self, he then says: have no passions; do not die. believe, however, that, when he says this, the in fact comprises both the and the Nirvana I. Hisamatsu writes: the human being, life and death are inseparable. Therefore, the human mode of being is called life-death. To be involved in lifedeath is the basic lot of us humans. That is a situation of absolute despair and absolute Angst. To bring a solution to this despair and anxiety is the essence of religion. Therein true peace of mind is found, and precisely therein lies the true This is the formless self, the Nirvana self. 1 In this text, Hisamatsu recognizes as the basic structure of human life.